tomorrow marks ten years since the u.s. went to war in iraq over claims that the country was making weapons of mass destruction so what has the u.s. learned from this conflict we'll have an iraq war report card coming up. and did you know the f.b.i. is the i was using secret leathers to gather information about u.s. citizens from businesses a judge says the practice is unconstitutional and orders it to stop more details on the secretive national security letters ahead. plus the u.s. says it's beefing up its missile defense systems on the west coast after a threat from north korea but should we really worry about north korea and is killing yang trying to pick a fight with washington party questions more. it's monday march eighteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t.

. tomorrow marks the ten year anniversary of u.s. aggressions in iraq in the decade since the war began a lot has changed in this country here's a rundown of the things we know the u.s. and gauged in misleading the public check the bush administration said time and again that iraq was dangerous because it possessed weapons of mass destruction it was the very foundation on which the entire war was built today the bush administration and the world knows otherwise lack of transparency check the fact that the government will not disclose concrete numbers of how many iraqi civilians were actually killed during the years of aggression or even the true economic cost of the war are a testament to this point numbers of iraq and iraq the civilians killed range from fifty thousand to one million add another check for violation of international law during the height of the aggression the us used and left depleted uranium number

three hundred sites around iraq sickening thousands along the way birth defects and infant mortality in cities like fallujah have increased at a rate of five times higher than anywhere else depleted uranium which to this day has not been cleaned questionable business practices check the military shady dealings with contractors like blackwater as well as the unexplained loss of some nine billion dollars in the country highlight the waste and the fraud of this war initiated post drawdown instability check just yesterday ten were killed another sixteen were wounded in a double car bombing in the southern city of basra another two dozen people were killed in a car bomb in baghdad on march fifteenth these two incidents are just the latest examples of violence and instability in the region for more on the true legacy that the us left in iraq i was joined earlier by a political analyst joe maccarone we began by talking about the military goals the

u.s. entered with which were ousting saddam hussein and seizing the weapons of mass destruction one of those goals was completed and the other one didn't exist so i asked him if this was mission accomplished here's his take. in mission accomplished was that we had different missions i think after two thousand and three the mission failed but i think after a dozen six we had to shift our strategy where the coalition election with the republican party lost the election you had gifts coming up you had baker you had those the whole shift the surge but definitely we never found any weapons of mass destruction so the initial goal of the of the of the invasion did not. was not fulfilled somehow but the most important thing is we have to look back i think the big picture of the invasion if you want to look back ten years ten years now we see that iraqi change washington as much as was to change iraq you see how much there's concern you c.e.c. the debt you see you see the risk of being involved now in syria and elsewhere in

the world you see the conservative party or the conservative movement in general is much more weaker you see the conservative movement to these are going to buy this book about any international issue you see there's more worry about the debt in general so i think it's that was the most way to change if you look back on the longer so you just saw our list of our checklist of what was actually done in iraq do you have anything to add on to that jack west no i think you covered basically pretty much the main thing is you had a group of civilians who came into iraq who planned the invasion they sidelined the army this created fictions either inside the pentagon or you had you had this friction still go on going to now in afghanistan just to highlight but on the more longer term. you had the decision to go to war without any international cover without any basic cover on the long term year after two thousand and six so.

the you created you knew there was basically the fossil council moving forward in iraq as you said there was a lot of corruption and the destruction there we have all. the ten million will release that somehow it was it was a mess somehow the family all right so let's talk about modern day iraq one of the things that the u.s. did succeed at was shifting the power away from the sunni's into the shia hands did this really create stability in the region it did not create but at that time if you remember the the the iraqi army was disbanded and yet you had the fragmentation of the state so basically the only way forward was to create the sunni shia and you had the old guard the elements you had iran jumping in to expose to ition you had turkey also so basically they created a culturally basically that looks like live on or somehow where you have a different confessions fighting for power and definitely you had shared anger from the sunni over the years from saddam hussein days you had the kurds who want their

own entity somehow so they created or iraqis also played a big part in creating the spokesman system that it's impossible to take any decisions so you have no power concentrated and in america you have the kurds to the vying for power you have the sunni side led now the gulf countries are upset from maliki the americans know that is the only want to deal with so it's a whole complicated region let's talk about al maliki we don't have that much time left but he's been in power since two thousand and six he said he will not run for a third term in twenty fourteen what does an iraq without all molecule look like it's hard to know who it was the structure that man who really got out of this doesn't fix basically it was the time of when the americans wanted to make an indicted salute to the to the iranians to prove their role in iraq somehow so it was elected in that it could be used to bring greater power and he's been since trying to balance edition between iran and between the u.s. and same time it's a very hard mission to do and recently he got more potent inside this party most

probably if you really did not run for another election you have somebody close to him but the the internet internal friction as iraq has opened so i don't think it's maliki stays or not that will stop right we know there's a lot of people supporting and also i can stand out in the u.s. as well as in iraq john mcenroe now political analyst thank you for your opinion. the hunger strike in guantanamo bay is entering its sixth week and still there is no resolution in sight it started after a detention facility official officers began searching and in some cases confiscating personal belongings of detainees including their korans and wanted to gaius is a former mo detainee he spoke earlier with r.t. international about his experience inside the facility here's part of that interview. there are many bad things that happen there's a beginning is there's a systematic torture where everyone goes through where they are a. part of their clothes for example and they sometimes sexually abused they

physically abused like myself and others we were physically beaten up until as you can see my right eye has been the sight in my right eye has been lost they tried to god's both in my eyes so you know they even were told what. led allegations against azhar we were questioned for hundreds of times and we were interrogated many many times and then we are released without any conviction we were never convicted never had the chance to see the evidence against us the generals have set up in the time of. bush. dick cheney and all the other officials the lawyers who legalized torture and they justified the methods of torture and they spoken publicly in defending this kind of thoughts and i think of course we hold all these people responsible now obama and the all the other officials the taking over the the people there were serious crimes of committed inside on time and people don't

realize their people were killed inside and on them more than nine people were killed in one town the people that i know inmates were sexually abused there were people who have lost their arms and lost limbs in the amputated like of the desire some people were paralyzed throughout their lives some people lost their eyes these are serious problems these are serious war crimes or crimes against captive people and these people have to come to justice if we let these people at large what will happen is that more across these like these would take place and they are examples of criminals committing crimes and just not paying back for their crimes our former guantanamo bay detainee omar to guy if. well look like even the f.b.i. is subject to the rule of law these days that a federal judge last week found that the f.b.i. has not been abiding by the constitution for years and is demanding for the agency to change its ways here's the rundown the f.b.i.

has been writing hundreds of thousands of so-called national security letters to private businesses these letters demand for employers to disclose private information about their clients that would otherwise require a warrant or a subpoena in order to obtain essentially it's the f.b.i.'s way of skirting around court orders the agency even tried to hide these letters by preventing businesses from even talking about them but that's no longer the case to explain why i was joined earlier by kurt upsala he's a senior staff attorney at the electronic frontier foundation he started off by explaining why these letters are so controversial these letters are somewhat unprecedented in the american system because they allow for a demand of information from a telecommunications provider without a warrant without a court being involved and are you how response she didn't know this unconstitutional but do you think that it actually went far enough well absolutely if the court found that they were unconstitutional and so the f.b.i.

can the issue of the letters in this case our case and in any other case so it's finding that the statute itself violates the constitution so tell me a little bit more about your client's case out of this. well i mean we as i think everybody expects the government will appeal so we'll take this up to the next level the ninth circuit court of appeal and then perhaps to the supreme court and get the court to say finally whether this type of letter is constitutional we believe that it is not in the court will agree now the judge's decision addressed several constitutional issues she found with these n.f.l. letters and her decision she said quote moreover there is no evidence before the code court that congress will still be concerned about the constitutional deficiencies after it had taken steps to address some of the constitutional infirmities found by district courts in the second circuit rather it appears that

in amending and reenacting the sasuke as it did congress was concerned with giving government the broadest powers possible to issue n.f.l. disclosure orders and preclude searching judicial review of the same and so was congress helping the f.b.i. skirt around the courts. will soon after the last time the statute was found to be unconstitutional congress went and amended the statute made a few changes that were trying to address the constitutional infirmity but as the judge noted last friday those steps were not sufficient and it remained unconstitutional so how far up the chain the that this go this in this manner of supporting these waters. well i mean these letters have been around for a long time and just really since the patriot act that they have been very widely used getting up into the hundreds of thousands of letters you know one of the biggest issues here is so few people challenge them they are designed to be issued

in secret they come along with a gag order and that's really the basis of the unconstitutionality here that people who receive them aren't allowed to talk about it and it really hasn't been able to be part of the public debate so a lot of politicians are supporting them because i think they don't really know how they're being misused and that's a very interesting point that you brought up and also the point of the sheer volume of letters that are actually being issued it's a very shocking to say the least i want to bring up some of the letters this is and this is from the department of justice in two thousand and three over thirty nine thousand went out in two thousand and six almost fifty thousand were sent out and in two thousand and eleven over sixteen thousand were fine stamped and sent out so you had mentioned that it takes so long for for anyone to really address this why is that. so many of these recipients they get the letter they say the gag order they don't say anything about it and comply despite the constitutional in for many years you know our client here really is. quite brave to come forth and

challenge the government on this and look forward to the day when it can talk about it really and finally kurt should these letters be banned altogether doesn't essentially create a society of spies for the f.b.i. . well i think these letters they take the court out of the process and one of the things that think is very important for the rule of law for due process is to have courts involved before companies can be required to give up information about their users to make sure that it's a proper request and not a misuse of government power do you think that a law actually slow down the information gathering process or damage national damage national security interests by maybe possibly one day outing these letters altogether i don't think actually outing these letters will damage national security issues i mean we may find some abuse but tightening governmental abuse does not damage national security and it enhances the democratic process which keeps our country strong curd opes all senior staff attorney at the electronic

frontier foundation thank you fair insight thank you well a california close line is going to get a little more cluttered soon u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel has ordered the military to beef up its missile interceptor system on the west coast only fear that north korea would launch a nuclear attack fourteen months that missile interceptors will be added by the year two thousand and seventeen as a precautionary measure to explain more about this military ramp up i was joined earlier by alexandra tomas she's a nuclear nonproliferation expert and a fellow for the truman national security project i began by asking her how imminent a threat to north from north korea really is. if you look at it this is a pattern for north korea this is not something new that they've vacillated back and forth between peace and bellicose sort of war names and so we shouldn't be shocked about this i think that with the new leader coming in he wants to establish himself as a military leader as well and i think this is part of that that stance that he's

having forward but how imminent is a threat realistically as i think many of your viewers may have seen this week and president obama said that there isn't an imminent threat but we would rather not have the risk and we want to hedge on the side of the margin call now to respond to threats like this are we threatening north korea ourselves or are we provoking them are we acknowledge what they're doing we're absolutely acknowledging what they're doing we are doing military exercises with our allies the south koreans but that's a normal thing that we do we're certainly working with again our neighbors in that reason the russians and the chinese as well and i think we actually need to be more of that to be clear with those in the region that this is something that's normal that the u.s. is doing these exercises and to make clear our intent at the plough missy we've done those exercises for quite some time every year but really ramping up this missile defense system what type of a message are we sending to north korea i think i mean it's not really ramping up

it's the european phased adaptive reproach this is where we talk about putting missiles in poland and obviously again with your with your audience the russians were not too happy about that but. they indicate that it's adaptive we're adapting to new realities so we're not we're not ramping anything else we're just adapting to and responding to the north koreans ok i do want to play a quick sound bite it's president obama talking about iran and the threat that iran poses. no we think that you would take it was yours. truly develop a nuclear weapon. so the american military is it taking its eye off the ball here by focusing on north korea which one really poses more imminent threat i think i mean i think the president made. very clear remarks and neither paper poses more of

a threat i think we need to look at all threats and look at them equally and circumstances change i mean we have to respond as these circumstances change we did not know that the north koreans would would do another missile test another nuclear test and so that's the way we're running ok now the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is admiral james when i felt he said that the system is meant to dissuade the north koreans but really. is it possible that this type of system could provide a false sense of security that's a good question i think that in working with our allies as i mentioned in the region the japanese and others i think we are working with them to let them know what the what the security is what we can provide and what we can't provide and as long as we're clear and transparent i think we're trying to do that i think everyone will be on the same page and everything will be fine. aleksandra tomas is a nuclear nonproliferation expert in the truman center national security project fellow. well it's one of the more uncomfortable conversations that couples have to

have at one point or another in their relationships sexual history and sexually transmitted diseases the fact is that an increasing number of americans both old and young are afflicted by any range of diseases it's becoming so much of a problem that the center for disease control estimates that it cost americans tens of billions of dollars each year to deal with or to correspondent liz wall reports . an outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases is plaguing the nation if your sexual activity you probably will have at least one sex with your sexual life apart according to a new report from the centers for disease control a hundred ten million people in the u.s. are infected and twenty million new people contract a sexually transmitted infection each year these are the eight most common diseases the c.d.c. looked at topping the list of the most prevalent hiv chlamydia trickle monogamous and genital herpes the human papilloma virus or h.p.v.

is by far the most common infection transmitted by sex doctor to make augustus is the director of o.b. g.y.n. at the med star washington hospital center she says h.p.v. cases are driving the numbers up there's a lot more cases of h.p.v. especially women. to young adult symptoms can include genital warts but they don't always show up when a person carries the virus in serious cases h.p.v. can lead to cervical cancer in women half of the newly infected are young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty four students they live in an area where they are engaging in high risk behavior just because they're having sex with one another so that creates a pool of disease that risks for people getting infected well figures show that sexually transmitted diseases have skyrocketed physicians point out we're screening a little bit more often and so i think we're also picking up

a coworker says what's clear is with sexually transmitted diseases rampant in the u.s. almost everyone that is sexually active is at risk of getting infected the invincibility of risk that this may not happen to me but will happen to someone else the c.d.c. estimates sexually transmitted infections cost sixteen billion dollars a year and medical costs sexually transmitted diseases come a significant physical psychological and fine. it will cost but all of it can be prevented and we have the numbers and the data to back us up to say this is really a problem so let's work towards i think education that means spreading awareness and using protection in washington. meanwhile it's been more than a week since sixteen year old kamani gray died in a storm of police bullets in flatbush brooklyn. controversy swirls over whether the new york police officer shot him in response to

gray pulling out a gun or just adjusting his belt strap his community in brooklyn has been a scene of protests in response to the shooting which have resulted in more than fifty arrests now the two policeman who fired the eleven rounds x. ray have been named it's. not an officer whole deal cordova these this isn't the first time that either one of these officers have come under questioning regarding their actions in uniform sergeant mole rat has been named it's three separate federal lawsuits and officer card has been named to all five of these lawsuits allege civil rights violations and ultimately cost new york city about two hundred fifteen thousand dollars to settle currently both of them have been placed on desk duty but gray's death has created more responses than that gray's high school principal matt willoughby wrote about the sophomore and his dedication to learning he said quote my hope is that as

a community we can agree that the death of anyone so young is tragic now whether this death will result in any policy or tactical changes on behalf of the n.y.p.d. or flatbush community remains to be seen. and speaking of the n.y.p.d. late last week new york police department officers had a milestone their five million stop and frisk five million the stop and frisk procedure is when police officers stop civilians they suspect of criminal activity on the streets and path of down all without a warrant today in new york federal judge started hearing testimony from a class action lawsuit that calls this practice unconstitutional the n.y.p.d. says that stop and frisk has resulted in decreased violence and that police needed to be able to use their discretion to identify and approach suspicious people but the lawsuit claims that these suspicions are based on prejudice the large majority of these people stuff from stop and frisk after all are young african-american and

latino men of those frest eighty eight percent walk away without arrest so this trial will get at the heart of whether these stops are necessary to prevent violent crime or unconstitutional and counterproductive the trial is expected to last a month and will help the n.y.p.d. sculpts their practices in the future but stop and frisk isn't the only controversial matter on police document on the police docket or to correspondent margaret howl took a look at some recent examples of police brutality. how many innocent u.s. citizens were killed by police officers this year shockingly there are no hard numbers on the subject but here's what we do know at times cops are authorized to beat maim and in some cases kill law abiding citizens the us constitution guarantees americans the freedom to peaceably assemble still individuals linked to social movements like occupy have been bullied by local law enforcement police

officers attempting to break up occupy protest like these at berkeley often showed up in riot gear armed with pepper spray and baton and many cases police sprayed protesters in the face and hauled them to jail remember that these citizens are unarmed and well within the laws to peacefully protest and assemble. occupiers aren't alone in the past year we found seven concrete examples of police brutality resulting in serious injury or death here or two of these examples on december twenty first of two thousand and twelve sammy davis was shot and killed by a cop in georgia as he stood in the grocery store parking lot asking customers for spare change the officer who killed him had a link the disciplinary file in his department and a history of excessive force against citizens here is davis' sister talking to local media there's a problem with leadership that we keep somebody like i was sworn to protect. me

because i did do that innocent person. another example bradshaw iraq war veteran and father of three young children was shot and killed by a member of the local sheriff's department in bowling green kentucky the bailiff is claiming self-defense but bradshaw was shot point blank in the head while seated in this car as for the bailiff while he was placed on administrative leave pending investigation and not arrested three hundred gathered in the streets to bring awareness about where in this case does the law protect u.s. citizens. the savage cruelty of cops this abuse of power goes far beyond to serve and protect just you gave them that right in washington murder howel party last month c.n.n. reporter poppy harlow reported about the in human conditions some illegal immigrants in the u.s. are forced to live in as a result of their citizenship status here's a piece of that report this is it we're here. eighty one barry i wanted to get to

know the people who call this place home people like mr wong a former restaurant worker who came to the u.s. alone in one nine hundred seventy seven and has lived here in this tiny room for more than thirty years good to see you again can we come in go when you do. please going ok thank you good to see you. but here's one dot that c.n.n. is not likely to connect for you as a direct result of this story those residents who were featured in this story were forced from their homes by the new york fire department it happened after a tipster saw the c.n.n. report and called the police the reasons for the eviction were unsafe living conditions there was hard to argue that being homeless is any safer now as journalists is our duty and our obligation to weigh heavily the stories we tell and the people we expose yes c.n.n. was doing its job in bringing the story and poppy harlow was trying to highlight

the dirty and dangerous conditions these people were living in but perhaps she did not have enough time to weigh the potential consequences of the story and now fifty people are without homes. now it's no secret that c.n.n. is in dire straits a new pew research poll actually found today that confirmed actually that c.n.n. is one of the cable stations that has suffered the highest losses for years the station has been trying to rebrand itself to reel viewers back in in the process to produce story packages like the one that you just saw poppy harlow's were cut nearly in half between two thousand and seven and two thousand and twelve live coverage of events by all major networks have fell thirty percent from two thousand and seven to two thousand and twelve a new public opinion poll found that one third of all respondents have deserted all news outlets or many of their news outlets because they no longer provide the information that the viewers have grown accustomed to and the overall number of journalists working for newspapers and television stations has decreased so for now

it looks like more people are moving away from the mainstream to learn about their world. well she's back sarah palin made quite an entrance at the annual speech conservative political action conference over the weekend when she made her way on stage with an unusual prop. a. that's right a big gulp the former alaska governor turned her focus on new york city michael mayor michael bloomberg for his proposal to ban the larger sugary drinks from cities and restaurants it was a small part of her thirty minute speech but it left the crowd thirsty for more and it looks like this tea partiers still has a sweet tooth for the limelight that's going to do it for now my meghan lopez have a great night.